Using data to make better water decisions
We tell stories with data to engage and inform water policy stakeholders to open out policy, challenge ‘magical thinking’ and increase the potential for conversation and dialogue on contentious water policy issues.
We’re releasing our first stories soon. The following Q&A with our Director Strategy & Programs, Rod Marsh, discusses what we hope these stories will achieve.
Q: Can you explain the goal of the data stories?
Our goal is to promote open dialogue and debate about contentious policy issues. To do this we need new ways to engage with facts, data and evidence that acknowledge different perspectives, the different ways issues can be framed, and the significant impact of uncertainty and ignorance.
By weaving facts and data into engaging narratives and showing how framing issues in different ways changes the problems we face, we aim to broaden people's understanding and foster dialogue and debate.
Q: Can you explain how 'facts' and 'evidence' can sometimes limit our choices?
‘Facts’ and ‘evidence’ are routinely deployed by advocates to narrow the scope of policy choice, usually to a single preferred outcome. The claim is often made that ‘given this evidence there is only one correct way to proceed’. For those with a strong partisan perspective, there is a strong incentive to frame complex, messy, value-laden, uncertain decisions as simple problems with clear right and wrong answers backed by evidence.
However, evidence does not speak for itself. Decisions must always be made about what evidence to focus on and what to ignore. We can frame policy issues in many different ways. Our deepest disagreements arise where evidence intersects with values. Until there is mutual acknowledgement of differing values and differing ways to use and interpret evidence many of our water conflicts will remain irresolvable.
Q: How does Watertrust plan to use data stories to change this situation?
We aim to show how water policy issues can be seen from multiple perspectives that require dialogue and debate. We will demonstrate how quite different pictures of reality can be assembled depending on how ‘facts’ and ‘evidence’ are put together as part of larger narratives.
Our data stories will show that there isn't just one right way to present or respond to water policy challenges. We also want to tell stories that are interesting and get people talking about water policy in new ways rather than reverting to tired, duelling certitudes.
Q: What's the timeline for your data stories work?
We're working on it now. We're making our first four data stories, and we plan to share the first two in the next 3-4 months. After that, we hope to share at least six stories a year. Some stories will be for everyone, and some will focus on specific issues relevant to a more limited set of stakeholders.
Q:What's your biggest hope for this project in the long run?
We hope that our data stories will help people be more open to dialogue and debate about water policy and move beyond some of the magical thinking that has locked conflict over water policy into predictable patterns for too long.
We need new ways to engage with facts, data and evidence that acknowledge different perspectives, the different ways issues can be framed, and the significant impact of uncertainty and ignorance.